Canadian Rockies Roadtrip - Banff Continued

We awoke to the pitter patter of little...RAINDROPS our first morning in Banff. It must have been about 5am...and when it rains while you're camping, you hear it...all of it! Jocelyn took off outside to put our camping chairs away and move the 'fly' away from the tent. It started to get really cold, so it required donning a second pair of socks. We both managed to get back to sleep and woke up at 9am. After our morning ritual (breakfast etc) we headed into Banff to satisfy the "inner tourist." We walked the town flat and I managed to buy gifts for my family. We stopped shortly to have lunch at Subway...yes, they "eat fresh" all the way up in Banff! On the way back to our car it started raining, so we headed back to our site to put our chairs under cover. We then headed out on a drive of the Minnewanka Loop (yes, you heard right) and stopped at Minnewanka Lake to take some pictures.

Next stop...Safeway...yes, they have Safeway in Canada. We picked up some groceries and went to a hardware store to pick up some rope for our tarp. When we got back to the campsite it was raining, but not too badly. However, it wasn't long before it started pouring and got really windy. Joss and I pegged down the fly, put the chairs under it and then started digging little trenches to keep the underside of the tent from getting soaked. Despite both of us having worn waterproof jackets, we both ended up soaked through. With the rain came the mozzies, to such an extent that we headed back into town for Citronella candles and garlic butter. We got a little side-tracked on the way to town though, and wih good reason. It's not often you get to see majesty like this on a daily basis:
Back at the site we had garlic butter on bread as a side-dish to our dinner to try and fend off the little fiends. We fared a lot better that night and also helped a single Mom set up her campsite (her 2 pre-teen kids wanted none of it:)). That night we got so cold (even wearing trackies) that we were "forced" to invent the concept of "double-bagging." That's putting yourself inside a sleeping bag, inside another sleeping bag in an attempt to get warm. It's the only thing that worked! The rain kicked in at about 2am, but we managed to sleep through to 9am.

We got up, had brekky, and headed out for a really magnificent day taking in Lake Louise, Moraine Lake and the Cave & Basin Hot Springs (see the next post for more details).

Candian Rockies Roadtrip - Banff

We arrived at Tunnel Mountain Campground in Banff at about 2pm on the 18th July 2004. We were assigned a site and went to check it out. On the way to our site we saw some rather cute natives - and no, I don't mean boys...I mean moose (see below):

Whilst setting up camp, we realised our particular spot was in direct sunlight (not such a wonderful idea in the middle of summer). After a quick jolt back to the entrance of the campground and a quick site change, we ended up in a much shadier spot. We "walked" out stuff over from our previous spot - including the fully pitched tent (with the help of 2 other campers). Check out our site (see below).
On completion of the set up of our site we headed in to Banff to check out the shops. However, once in the town of Banff (short for Banffshire in England) I ended up with a killer headache, and so we headed back to our site. Thankfully the amenties in the Banff National Park were FREE and way neater and cleaner than those in Scotch Creek, and they didn't close...ever! Ah, the things one takes for granted. We had dinner and washed up our dishes. However, we were unable to enjoy our evening as the "restless natives" were out for blood...you guessed it...MOZZIES! Lots of them! We eventually had to run for cover in the tent...however, several swine managed to sneak through the lines of defence and ended up in the tent with us...not fun!

Canadian Rockies Roadtrip - Part One

After 3 glorious days in Whistler Jocelyn and I headed back to Vancouver, excited about the next chapter of our adventure together - a week-long road trip through the Canadian Rockies! After stopping off back at her parents' place, they joined us on the drive over to the car rental place. We ended up hiring a Chevy Monte Carlo - pretty much a 2-door sports car with a massive boot (trunk) - all our camping stuff fitted in (just barely).

We left Vancouver around 3pm and drove 6 and a half hours to Cottonwood Campground in Scotch Creek. Unfortunately we had no prior knowledge of the place, and were informed that the bathrooms were CLOSING at 10:30pm!! So, suffice to say we had to find our camp site, pitch a tent which we had never pitched (in the DARK) and get showered and cleaned up before 10:30pm. Speaking of showers...upon arriving at said showers, we were shocked to find that you had to pay $1 for a 10 minute shower..can you believe it? INSANE! Plus, we had no soap and I had to settle for using my shampoo instead. We were NOT impressed in the least. After that we had to go back to our site and put the 'fly' over the tent and pump up the air mattress - not fun with a foot pump! Anyway, we finally got all the bits and pieces done and decided to go for a walk by torch light. On our way back from the "porta-loos" before bed, we had the unfortunate coincidence of walking past a site full of drunk JERKS! They started talking rather loudly and said some rather crude things (which will never again cross my lips) as we were walking past. Thanks to aforemetioned jerks, it took me ages to get to sleep that night - it was most likely 1am before sleep finally claimed the both of us.

The following morning Jocelyn and I were up at the crack of dawn - literally. We were up so early, we couldn't use the bathrooms because they weren't open yet! However, we were able to improvise and use our container of water from Vancouver to wash up and brush our teeth. We packed up our site and headed out again - this time bound for Banff, another 6 hours away from Scotch Creek. As we crossed the state line into Alberta, we started driving though some of the most amazing scenery I had ever seen.

Amazing, yes? And that's not even the heart of the Canadian Rockies - it's just the "outskirts." Feast your eyes on this (it gives you some idea of just how "small" we really are!)

Whistler Mountain

We reached the top of Whistler Mountain after a 20 minute gondola ride. The gondola ride itself offered some pretty awe-inspiring scenery - but nothing compared to standing atop the mighty Mountain. It was lunch time by then so Joss and I headed to the restaurant to have a bite to eat. When paying for my meal, I discovered that the cashier was Australian, working in Canada during the snow season. Out the back of the restaurant was a viewing deck which enabled us to take in the magnificence of it all whilst enjoying our lunch (see above).

After lunch Joss and I headed out on a seriously up-hill-then-down-hill hike to Harmony Lake. Joss had seen photos of the place and wanted to take some of her own, so I happily obliged. We reached Harmony Lake without much hassle and again captured some of God's amazing handy work on film (digital disk...same thing). Stopping to admire the view is pretty easy when you have a view like this(see below).

Blackcomb Mountain

Our last true "day" at Whistler was by far the most amazing of our stay. We got up early and went to the Village to buy sight-seeing passes for both Blackcomb and Whistler Mountains. We decided to head up Blackcomb first. After 2 sets of chair-lifts, a short bus ride and another chair lift we found ourselves at the very top of Blackcomb where they have the summer glacier skiing. The view was the most breathtaking sight - the closest I've come to being on top of the world - and at 2,284m above sea-level, it sure looks that way!!

We walked around the top of the moutain - which proved to be great material for these photographic fundies, which included checking out the "crazy people" skiing on the glacier and taking photos of them.

Neither of us had ever been so high up, so we decided to grab ourselves a hot chocolate and "warm up" whilst soaking in the view. However, the hot chocolate turned out to be a bad idea...and after scoping out the 3 single "long drop" loos - no way were either of us going to heed the call of nature in the sub-zero temperatures! Suffice to say that our pit-stop at the Rendez-vous Restuarant on our way back down the mountain inspired an interesting song! And no, you'll never get me to sing it!

After coming down off Blackcomb we walked through the Upper Village to the Main Village where we caught a gondola to the top of Whistler...(see next post)

This last photo (below) was taken from the top of Blackcomb lookng down towards Whistler Village. This gives you some idea of just how high up we really were!

Whistler - Part II

It's to be expected that places change. I guess the little girl that remembered Whistler was just hoping she would find something familiar! The only thing that was familiar to me was the Timberline Lodge from our visit back in 1993. And as such I jumped at the opportunity to have my stop at the hotel captured for posterity (Thanks Joss).


Whistler Village was much bigger than I remembered, and there were more shops to visit - which is not such a bad thing:) During our wandering through the shops...Joss got the chance to get up close and personal with a rather friendly looking bear. I also had my photo taken with the bear, but I like her shot better:)

As you can guess, Joss and I spent the day walking and shopping (I did the shopping) and taking in the general splendor of the place. Whistler in summer is still as spectacular as it is in the winter.

So after a lot of traipsing from one side of the Village to another and lunch at Earl's we decided to head back to our hotel. There we spent the better part of the afternoon hiding from the heat and relaxing a little. We took in a movie that night in the hotel's "movie room." It was rather spacious and cool (of course) so neither of us minded a little mind-numbing entertainment.

Whistler - Part I

The one place I most wanted to re-visit while in Canada was Whistler. I have such great memories from our family trip there in December of 1993 that it deserved a walk down memory lane. We drove from Vancouver to Whistler in 3 hours - no bad considering all the road works and stops we had to make as a result. Crawling at 50km p/h up the Sea to Sky Highway is an interesting way to see the "scenery" :).

We got to Whistler a little after 5pm on the Wednesday and checked into our hotel - Legends at Creekside. I chose Creekside because it was a lot quieter than Whistler Village and it was only 4km from the main village. Legends was quite a nice hotel and our room was more than spacious. There could have been 4 of us and we still would have had enough room!

Once we had checked in we drove to Whistler Village to do a bit of grocery shopping for our 3 day stay. We had a discounted dinner at a place called Dusty's thanks to the "passport" we'd each picked up in the Village with all sorts of discount coupons. After dinner we went for a swim in the hotel's rather large pool and lazed around in the hot tub for a while. We ended the day with Smarties ice-cream for dessert:)

Bridal Veil Falls & Harrison

Day 5 of my Canadian trip allowed us to indulge in some niceties from "home." Joss drove us to the South African shop where we both stocked up on yummy sweets. We then had to go back past her home to pick up her books and then drop them off at TWU (where she was completing her Master's degree). We eventually got on our way to Harrison, but ended up stuck in pretty bad traffic thanks to road works slap bang in the middle of the day! Add to this the fact that VOIB did not not have A/C and the temperature was in the 30's we were quite uncomfortable. Once we cleared the traffic though it was much better.

At Bridal Veil Falls I had to exchange my sandals for runners in order to take a nice easy hike to the falls. Once there Joss and I took some snaps of the falls and Joss even decided it was worth getting "closer" to the falls by climbing up next to it!! I had to stand at the bottom and keep watch to warn her if more people were coming up.

After Bridal Veil Falls we got back on the road and reached our destination - Harrison. There are hot-springs in Harrison which is the main draw card for the place. There was a hotel close by and we snuck into the pool area as the pools are fed by the hot-springs! After we snuck back out we went for a nice walk beside the lake and into the wooded near by. There we found a cement "house" that was locked up which we could see (through bars) housed the source of the hot springs - pretty smelly I must say, but amazing nonetheless.

What an adventure...eh!

My trip to Canada gave me the opportunity to re-visit places I hadn't seen in 11 years. I had 3 weeks to go, do and see as much as I could and Jocelyn was more than happy to show me around. On this particular day though, Jocelyn's mom, Nola took me back to the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park in North Vancouver.

Capilano is the world's longest suspension bridge (if memory serves) and attracts loads of tourists each year. Walking over that bridge was as exhilarating as it was 11 years prior. There was lots to see and do including the "Tree Top Adventure" which was 8 smaller suspension bridges weaving through the tree tops of some of the biggest trees I've seen in a while. After that Nola and I wandered through the park and took in the sights. We came across The Pond (see post from 12 August) and I took what I consider to be one of my best pictures.

And, if you got really tired you could rest your feet outside the "general store" amongst the gorgeous flowers!

Going back in time to 2004...

OH CANADA...
I finished my university studies in June of 2004. To spoil myself, I decided to go to Canada to visit my best friend Jocelyn Thorp (nee Cilliers). My flight to Vancouver didn't happen on the day it should have thanks to a lazy travel agent forgetting to mention I needed an American transit visa. Anyway, it got sorted out, but it meant that I ended up spending a night in Sydney at an airport hotel and the following day found this (see above) waiting outside the terminal to carry me to Canada. I wondered if there'd been some mistake...I mean when you have a 19 hour trans-pacific flight ahead of you, you want the safety of the "big guns" of the airline industry - where's the 747-400?!? What?? You mean I have to get on that "little" thing???

Destination: New Zealand

These pictures were taken back in April 2005. We spent a week in Rotorua (which is famous for it's volcanic activity).

We visited the Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland (see above) and my Dad and sister bought a "tripple bypass" which saw them zorbing, swooping and taking a ride on an Agrojet (see below).

We also visited several other places of interest and got really fed up with the road works on our drive back to Auckland to pick up our visas. Our last night in Auckland we bought dinner and drove to an open parking lot close to the airport where we watched the planes landing and taking off...lots of fun and very noisy!

My Favourite Photo..

This photo was taken at our last home in South Africa in the suburb of Kloof (approximately 20km from Durban). It was a Saturday evening and we were having a braai when all of a sudden the sky turned this gorgeous golden orange. I took the opporunity to capture the colour and the "prehistoric tree" in our yard!

The Pond...

This is by far my favourite photo taken while on holiday in Canada in July 2004. This was taken at the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park in North Vancouver.

Photo Blog

I am hoping to turn this blog into a photo blog. My previous attempt at a photo blog via MSN's Spaces site was frustrating. This seems to be an "easier" site to upload to (I hope). This way all my friends locally and abroad can see what I've been up to.